I hope they will open the traditional stores again. I hate the new minimal design like the one in Rockville because it is soulless like the now-defunct Amazon books.

I spread buying between indy stores, Amazon, and B&N. $ at indy stores helps local economies and authors. Amazon helps more authors because I can buy more books. B&N is important because they carry (or used to) so many specialty books that have trouble getting traction online because you have no way of knowing about them.

IMO they all have different values.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really want to support them but when I recently took my daughter there, almost every book she picked was about $5 more in store (prices were ~$13 in store vs $8 on Amazon)…. I just couldn’t justify buying more than a few locally and ordered the rest online. But glad they are having success, reading is great.

I’m the same - I pick up one or two that I want to read immediately, but order the rest online. I do spend quite awhile browsing.

They will price match online prices - worth looking at their online price and asking.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was there today. It was very crowded.

Which one? I was in the Rockville location two weekends ago and the line was pretty long. I wasn’t paying attention what people were buying. I was buying one book.

Gathersburg/RIO

I wish there were more independent bookstores

Anonymous wrote:I was there today. It was very crowded.

Which one? I was in the Rockville location two weekends ago and the line was pretty long. I wasn’t paying attention what people were buying. I was buying one book.

Are they coming back to downtown DC?

Anonymous wrote:I really want to support them but when I recently took my daughter there, almost every book she picked was about $5 more in store (prices were ~$13 in store vs $8 on Amazon)…. I just couldn’t justify buying more than a few locally and ordered the rest online. But glad they are having success, reading is great.

It's called inflation. It affects more than just groceries and car prices. You don't have to spend money but it's not unreasonable for books to cost more now than when we were kids.

As for books being cheaper on Amazon, sometimes. That's been the Amazon model for decades - undercut competitors and put them out of business. So supporting predatory pricing is a benefit for you. For a while.

I was there today. It was very crowded.

It’s one of the few stores where the membership is worth it. We buy a lot of birthday party presents there and always stick a gift receipt in. My kids like picking out something they’ve enjoyed for their friends but it also works as a gift certificate if the kid already has it.

I'm not unhappy about this, but I'm trying to only buy books from our local - Bard's Alley.

Barnes and Noble is also at least 50%,if not more, not just a bookstore. It's basically a toy store now too.

Anonymous wrote:I really want to support them but when I recently took my daughter there, almost every book she picked was about $5 more in store (prices were ~$13 in store vs $8 on Amazon)…. I just couldn’t justify buying more than a few locally and ordered the rest online. But glad they are having success, reading is great.

I’m the same - I pick up one or two that I want to read immediately, but order the rest online. I do spend quite awhile browsing.

I really want to support them but when I recently took my daughter there, almost every book she picked was about $5 more in store (prices were ~$13 in store vs $8 on Amazon)…. I just couldn’t justify buying more than a few locally and ordered the rest online. But glad they are having success, reading is great.

Anonymous wrote:Some good news to the bookstore lovers.

Expansion this size is possible because of a strengthened interest in books and reading that came as a result of the pandemic — more people read because they were stuck at home, and Barnes & Noble locations were able to improve stores while they were closed.

One of them is coming to Reston!

https://bookriot.com/barnes-noble-opening-30-stores-in-2023/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/barnes-noble-store-expansion-leads-big-box-real-estate-revival-in-2023-11671454054 (paywall)

Not good for Scrawl Books.

Some good news to the bookstore lovers.

Expansion this size is possible because of a strengthened interest in books and reading that came as a result of the pandemic — more people read because they were stuck at home, and Barnes & Noble locations were able to improve stores while they were closed.

One of them is coming to Reston!

https://bookriot.com/barnes-noble-opening-30-stores-in-2023/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/barnes-noble-store-expansion-leads-big-box-real-estate-revival-in-2023-11671454054 (paywall)